“Let us return the favor, Prophet.”
“Yes, let us thank you.”
Fear and annoyance sparked within him, but deeper still was the churning ocean of black rage; a wrath only born from a lifetime of bittersubjugation under a screaming zeemir and ruthless overlords; a mad, howling, frothing fury that flooded him until he tasted ash on his tongue.
He was no fucking servant.
His oath to Leo had been necessary andtemporary. Oaths were made between people of different levels of power, a ruler and a servant, a superior and someone inherently inferior.But I am equal to you now, he thought viciously.
He would give her no oath.
“You forget, my rani, that I serve no one,” he said, struggling to make his voice level, calm. The peoplecould notsee him break. “My only oath now is to my god. To our land.”
“What greater thing to serve than Ravence itself?” she said. “You once told me to make Ravence my god. If you are Prophet of this land, is it not yours too? Surely, you will not rebuke this gift, for it is from the people as much as it is from me.”
He could feel their stares, their whispered confusion, their growing doubts. Damn her. Elena had pinned him, trapped him so effortlessly that he could not help but feel a vague sense of respect beneath his resentment. Had he been her, he would have done the same.
“Besides,” Elena said, dropping her voice so only he could hear, “you said you would do this if I trained with your urumi.”
The strangled scream died in his chest. His Agni grew weaker while hers remained so temptingly strong. Even now, he could feel it. The damn fool still did not know how to hide it from him. It flickered within his mind’s eye, a torrent of strength andabundancy. His Agni had been like that in the beginning, bright and vicious and plentiful, and he yearned to feel like that again. To fill the empty, aching parts of himself.
After all he had bled for, fought for,sinned for, he deserved it.
Because he was a god, and gods devoured one another.
And great skies above, he was tired of staving off his own hunger too.
Samson swallowed thickly. Then, before his army, his friends, and the people of Ravence, he bent to Elena.
“I will take this oath, then, my rani.”
There were no white sands this time. No fire. Elena took the sword and tapped it on his shoulders and crown, her voice sonorous, his clipped and flat, as he repeated after her.
“The queen is the protector of the flame, and I its servant.
Together, we shall give our blood to this land.
I swear it, or burn my name in the sand.”
Roars erupted around him, deafening. The Ravani flung their cursed powder and coated him with crimson as dark as blood. Elena returned the slingsword to him, smiling, laughing, and he hoped, for her sake and her people’s, that she was innocent. That this was not a play meant to demean him, but a genuine effort to upraise the Ravani. He hoped.
It was a fragile, broken thing.
Visha tugged on his sleeve. “General, a tanker is approaching.”
“Enemy tanker?” he rasped, watching Elena.
But Visha shook her head, her voice tight. “Cyleoni.”
CHAPTER 17
ELENA
During the Five Desert Wars, Cyleon sent military aid to Ravence. Pundits have criticized the emerald kingdom for sending untrained men, but the combined force of Ravence and Cyleon turned the tide of battle against the Jantari in Rasbakan.
—from chapter 42 ofThe Great History of Sayon
The Cyleoni tanker perched on top of a boulder the size of seven grown men, a fly on the hide of a great red beast. That didn’t prevent Black Scales from surrounding the ship. They crept forward with their guns balanced nervously in their hands. Five soldiers marched out of the tanker, armed with zingers and saber collars. Elena inhaled sharply. The Cyleoni had come in their battle gear.
